Creeping prohibition - a warning from Washington

At the Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum in Washington last year I was on a panel of speakers that discussed the pitfalls of banning tobacco and nicotine.

The January 2023 issue of Tobacco Reporter has a full report here. It includes this passage:

Clark observed that the threat of prohibition has never gone away. The temperance lobby from the start of the 20th century, he said, has simply reappeared under the guise of public health and devised a new strategy - creeping prohibition. As examples, Clark cited public smoking bans, which in some jurisdictions have expanded to include outdoor areas and even social housing, preventing people from smoking in their own homes. Britain’s ban on menthol cigarettes, he observed, has outlawed a product category that accounted for 20 percent of the domestic market.

Meanwhile, England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland have all set dates by which they want their countries to be “smoke-free,” by which they mean less than 5 percent of adults smoking. According to Clark, those targets can be achieved only by further and excessive regulation. He was particularly disturbed by Philip Morris’ call on the UK government to ban the sale of cigarettes by 2030 - a step that could very well backfire, according to Clark. “The day will surely come when alternative nicotine products, including e-cigarettes, will also be targeted for prohibition - as indeed they already are in some parts of the world,” he said.

Politicians don’t need much encouragement to favour prohibition so it’s worth noting that there’s an interview with Wes Streeting, Labour’s shadow health secretary, in The Times today that notes:

Streeting is ready to take on the libertarian right over smoking. New Zealand has introduced a law which means that nobody now under the age of 14 will ever be legally permitted to buy cigarettes, and he is interested in doing something similar here.

Leaving aside the fact that there are many on the left who are equally incensed by the increasing intrusion by the state in our daily lives and habits, it’s significant that Streeting also wants to clamp down on vaping, thereby proving the point I made in Washington and have consistently made on this blog and elsewhere for several years.

Tobacco control (and politicians) will never settle for the eradication of cigarettes. Their long-term goal is the eradication of all recreational nicotine products so it’s worth reading Streeting’s comments about vaping:

“I’m deeply anxious about the fact that having reduced smoking, particularly among young people, we’ve sleepwalked into the growth of a new industry in vaping, which has seen enormous take-up among children and young people who otherwise would not smoke,” he says. “My instinct is to take the same approach with vaping as we did with smoking in terms of packaging and marketing, because I’m concerned that the vaping industry is now growing exponentially and there may well be risks associated with it that are not yet clear.”

You have been warned.

See also: GTNF 2022, my report of last year’s event.

Comments

[Pat Nurse]

It still remains true that low calibre politicians defunct of meaningful ideas and lacking any originality to make them stand out enough to remembered, will always resort to bashing smokers and smoking as a means of trying to get themselves noticed.

It becomes ever more obvious that the Tories desperately want to lose the next election but that won't worry ASH who will just harass the new ministers to do their bidding - probably using CRUK as a way of getting their propaganda an easy, unchallenged, ride in pet media outlets.

The stink of anti democratic anti smokerism is getting fouler.

[Pat Nurse]

I don't follow politics much these days so forgive my error in thinking that Wes Streeting is a Tory. The two parties are so similar in this issue it is hard to tell them apart. Neither are really worth voting for any more but I think Labour is the more extremist so therefore more dangerous to have in Government.